Chapter 28 - Dolian Observa

Thunder came crashing down like a fearsome dragon wishing to destroy everything in its path. The ground was scorched from the thunder's immense heat, while the wind howled as trees came toppling down in rows and columns, devastating the pristine forest into a ravaged landscape of char and ash.

Alastor felt as if something within him has undergone a change he can't put into words. It was as if his entire purpose has turned into something "more", something more profound… something more abstract yet conceptualized. Like when he first manifested his quirk, he felt as if his body and soul resonated as one and synergized with one another.

His domineering aura settled down at the same time the smoke billowed away to reveal the aftermath of his repressed anger exploding out like a furious volcano. In the middle of scorched earth and baleful winds, a sizzling corpse with barely any remains greeted his eyes.

"Is it…" Pindle looked around warily as if something was hiding in the shadows. "Over?"

"Is he actually dead?" Aleksandra warily approached the corpse and grabbed a stick along the way. As she poked at it, the charred corpse collapsed as chunks of flesh disintegrated into dust that flew away with the receding gusts of wind.

"He's dead alright." Luke tapped the side of his head and his glowing blue eyes scanned the pile of remains.

"Ha…" Alastor exhaled a turbid breath and felt his rapidly beating heart calm down. Even though it was strange, the relief he felt was something that he could confirm was real.

'Finally.' He grabbed his chest and sensed his beating heart. 'I've exacted my revenge and satisfied the yearning of my soul.'

'Alastor Cohed has finally proven himself!' He declared in his heart and turned to look at Dolian.

There, he saw a young boy with black hair and golden eyes staring at the corpse of two cloaked figures. His face was impassive, but an indescribable sadness can be felt from his emotionless figure.

"Are you okay?" Aleksandra bit her lips and asked. She didn't try to needlessly approach the boy and instead inquired from a distance.

"Yeah." Dolian shook his head. Opening his mouth, a spark lit up and flames burst out to swallow the two corpses whole.

As the two corpses crumbled into remnant ashes, he closed his mouth and smiled. With a soft trail of wind, the ashes floated away and fused with the trees and leaves, with the burnt forest as if to signify the start of a new beginning that comes from an end.

"One, Two…" Dolian muttered and shook his head. "You two received quite the redemption arc if I say so myself. Everyone, your sacrifices were not in vain."

"Everyone?" Pindle inquired as she and the others approached the kneeling Dolian.

"It's a long story." Dolian laughed bitterly and looked at them before he then focused his gaze on Alastor. "You like my little gift for you? Heh, fate really gave you a hand in your quirk awakening."

"Huh?" The others turned to look at Alastor with confused gazes.

"You mean…" Alastor widened his eyes. "That anger was because of you?"

Dolian leaned his back against a tree and smirked, "Yep. It was only a theory, but it was indeed successful."

"Now, you're the strongest amongst all of us right here, our dear tyrant." Dolian shook his head at the cringe-worthy nickname he just uttered.

"Awakening?" Alastor clenched his fists. "What is that… exactly?"

"Fuuuu…" Dolian scratched his head and patted the ground beside him. "Let's just start from the very start, shall we? This is gonna be a rowdy ride, and I'm pretty sure I'll have to do this with my parents and the government eventually, so you guys better be good practice dummies and listen carefully."

…

"I knew that Leader was too strong for us to handle. He was approaching the level that can even go toe-to-toe with the likes of Uncle Albion, and our power was no match for him no matter what we do. So, I had to resort to a risky attempt and forcefully made Alastor awaken by forcefully amplifying his repressed emotions."

"It was essentially a gamble that broke moral grounds, but there was really no other way. It was either us that die, or I throw the dice of fate and fight till my last breath."

"In the end, my little gamble formed upon a baseless theory proved to be correct, Alastor opened the path to what I like to call godhood, and his quirk underwent a qualitative change."

Dolian sighed with a smile, "Finally, we won and…" He paused before uttering with malice and repressed trauma in his voice, "Avenged all of my fallen comrades."

Both Hope and Ayumu sighed wordlessly at their son's tragic experience. Even though he was finally back, they could still feel the aftermath of what transpired and went to hug him in an attempt to comfort his traumatized heart.

The story he retold made the mother and father feel sorry for their son. Many lives were sacrificed along the way in an attempt to bring down the big evil. Lives that Dolian considered as his comrade and allies who put their lives on the line for him, throwing away their own breath for a single person.

The burden built up in Dolian's heart, grieving him till this day. Even with their attempts to placate him, even though he was someone who held a tough mind, tougher than anyone else his age, he still felt the mountain of bones that sat beneath his feet, along with the ocean of blood that rested below him.

'Not only did he throw away his life for his classmates, he managed to amass his own army and turn countless villains into his allies by changing their hearts, but eventually losing them all to defeat Leader.'

It was a tale that ended bittersweet and in the middle of all that was their son.

"There, there." Hope patted the back of Dolian's head and smiled.

"It's okay to cry," Ayumu whispered.

Dolian's eyes started to redden as he looked down at the ground. The small smile on his face disappeared while tears streamed down from his eyes. He sniffed and cried, then as he grieved, he muttered with a grateful smile, "Thank you…"

"Everyone."

…

"First of all, this is strictly still just a slightly proven theory with at most two successful cases that I know of."

"Maybe you guys already have data and info regarding the topic of quirk awakening, but I'll still do my best to share what I know, only on the condition that this will be used for the greater good and won't do harm to others."

"Don't worry, Dolian. You can trust us." A person wearing a white lab coat responded.

"Alright." Dolian nodded his head and leaned back on the chair he was sitting on.

"This was something that I already theorized long ago since I was ten, and after encountering Leader from Kryptos, I soon started to believe that he has already awakened his quirk."

"How so?" They asked.

"It was more so an intuition, but I personally believe that quirks are a representation of our own uniqueness. This is in line with the theory that quirks can influence our personalities and characteristics, right?"

"With the description the others gave me about Leader's character and his abilities, I identified that he was a domineering, cunning man. While this might be a stretch to say, gravity manipulation should be a metaphysical manifestation of his domineering nature. Then, if he were to awaken, that domineering nature of his should allow him to gain authority over space-time, right?"

"A king would obviously want more subjects to rule over. In a sense, he became closer to his domineering and king-like uniqueness and gained control over space-time."

As he explained his theories and findings regarding quirk awakening, the man with black hair and dark brown eyes who sat on a golden throne muttered within the mind world, "Leader's awakening should have given him the ability to manipulate space-time, and he later on specialized more in the principles of time to gain the ability to go back in time."

"This means that his Origin should have been something related to King or Leader, and adding his cautious yet domineering nature, his quirk development was steered to producing a King of Time or Gravity depending on, in theory, what pathway he would later on manifest once his Law Seed fully grows."

"It's such an interesting study…" Dolian smiled and stared at the screen playing in front of him with a gentle smile.

"Finally, after doing this over the span of countless years, to study fate and its mysteries, I'll finally be able to achieve my third origin release, although this should be said to be my second since I directly jumped to becoming a Stage Two entity when my quirk first manifested."

As the scenes played out the exact same just like he experienced long ago, time continued to pass.

…

Dolian stared out the glass window in his bedroom and watched the moon hanging high in the sky with a curious gaze, "Was my reincarnation something fate itself willed into existence, or perhaps in the far future, when I potentially become a Pathway Entity already or beyond that, I myself caused my own death and my own creation."

"Hahaha…" Dolian chuckled. "Do I become Ouroboros, the snake that ate its own tail?"

Shaking his head at his absurd thoughts and conjectures, ideas that were full of arrogance, he took one last look at the starry sky and closed the curtains. "In that case, did that big lizard also reincarnated me due to my own arrangements?"

He took off his clothes and changed into his pajamas. Then, tidying up his bed, he plopped his body onto his mattress and felt his body relax.

Glancing at the ceiling above him, he took a deep breath, and instantly, a sudden change occurred. It was as if some metaphysical concept that couldn't be sensed by mortal senses was being influenced in a strange manner.

Time continued to pass, and everything went on as normal, but within the silent room, the boy's vertical golden eyes dilated as they widened and shrunk in rapid intervals.

Outside a massive palace that stood on top of a floating island in the dark void, a man with black hair and dark-brown eyes appeared on the outer edges of the island and stared down at the endless darkness below him.

He wore a gentle smile on his face, and he took a single step forward. With one step already planted on nothingness, he turned to look back at his palace which started to produce one crack after another.

"After countless years in an attempt to control my own fate, it's finally coming to fruition." Dolian smiled and ignored the aching pain he felt. Looking back at the endless void, he took the second step, and he rapidly fell down into the endless pit of darkness.

His body rapidly disintegrated into dust while his mind island turned into shattered motes of light. His mind slowly fell apart, breaking down into smaller and smaller fragments. But, in the middle of that oblivion was something that couldn't be broken by the merciless force that threatened to swallow his mind.

It was an undying will, a will that resonated with his mind, body, and soul, a will that resonated with his very being and Origin.

Fate. It was a will to write his own fate.

As if calling out to the particles of dust that swirled in the dark void, golden spherical lights started to gather from nothingness to form a humanoid figure that wrapped around the undying will.

The figure had long white hair and pure golden eyes that glowed brightly in the endless darkness. He wore a simple white robe and held a book in one hand and a quill in the other. His face was considered neither handsome nor ugly, but his mere presence alone would cause others to bow down to him as if they were greeting an almighty dragon or a being close to the level of a god.

"Finally." He muttered and opened the book he held, showing empty white pages that flipped on without pause.

As he pressed his quill on the simple book, a flurry of golden words started to be written in a language never before seen, but could be understood by anyone who looked at it.

"With fate now in partial control of a certain entity, Dolian Tatori managed to live with the assistance of the dragon who holds dominion over Reincarnation."

"Dolian Tatori soon started to focus more on the inner calling of his Origin, and would go on the path of exploring the mysteries of illusions."

"Leader and the remaining Kryptos members would start to rebuild themselves from the ground up, faking their own deaths that would successfully fool the entire world and become the secret organization later known as Hidden Order."

More and more words were written down without any signs of pausing at all. Pages were filled with an endless string of words, and that happened all the while the unknown figure fell deeper into the abyss before fully disappearing from view.

Above the endless darkness, the shattered motes of light stabilized as the mind island once again reformed. Not only that, but the grandeur palace returned back to its original state and regained its past glory. Gone were the cracks and fissures that littered Dolian's mind.

Amidst the swirling motes of light, a young boy with black hair and golden eyes appeared with a confused gaze.

"What was I doing again?" He asked himself before he soon remembered. "That's right. I'm Dolian Tatori, the reincarnee who managed to gain a second chance in life!"

"Mmm." He nodded his head with a smile. "Now, let's start training already!"

And so, with the beginning that comes after an end, Dolian takes another step forward in the path of the almighty as a myriad illusions fooled fate.

End of Arc 1—Dolian.

AN: This chapter has 2357 words.

Now that's how you fucking end an Arc. Like, the title, the reveal of the arc title, the actual story's ending, it's such a great ending in my humble opinion. Hehehe, that means I definitely imrpoved as a writer unlike the horrible endings I wrote in my previous works.

ANYWAYS, since this is a monumental end for Dolian's story, why don't you check out my twitter because I want more followers and kinda dream of having 100 followers, so go check it out! (It's @OldAncestorNND btw).

Don't be shy on following, I'm not gonna judge you anways. I just want to be more transparent with readers so that's why that account exists. It's like a window to the life of a struggling high school writer so anyone who potentially wants to be a writer like me can gain a surface understanding of my hardships.

(April 29, 2023 - 520th day of writing)